Chapter 38.2

T/N: Yeah… if only trauma was so easy to fix. Oh well, this is just fiction so there’s no need to think too hard about it!

Editor: Mimishijie

Song Ran heard a light cracking sound; the protective shell named ‘steadfastness’ that plated his heart had split open. A young boy stuck out his head and timidly walked over, timidly took over his consciousness, and timidly hugged He Zhiyuan, sobbing as he called out, “Dad.”

Dad.

This sound was very soft, but He Zhiyuan heard it clearly.

There was no way his heart would not ache.

“Darling, it’s all right now, Dad is with you.” He tightly held Song Ran and kissed the boiling-hot side of his neck. “Good boy, don’t be afraid. Dad is here, you don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

Someone lifted up the curtain in the teahouse doorway; it was a shop assistant who had come out to check on the situation, wishing to find out what the situation was with the loud sound that nearly shattered the glass earlier. Faced with two men hugging next to the window as soon as he came out, his eyes went wide.

With another look at the one whose face was visible, the shop assistant was dumbfounded. “M-Mr He?”

He Zhiyuan was a regular at this teahouse and often footed the bill via their facial recognition option, so each and every one of the shop assistants knew him.

He signalled ‘don’t disturb’ with his eyes, but it was too late. Startled by this sound, Song Ran unconsciously pushed him away and took a step back in a fluster, fingers gripping his pants seams as he gave a nonplussed look at the shop assistant, his watery eyes red like a rabbit’s.

“I-I’m sorry! Mr He, we’ll give you thirty percent off next time!”

The shop assistant bowed, then hastily turned around and hid inside the teahouse.

Earlier, Song Ran had inexplicably called out ‘Dad’. Now that he had come back to himself, he felt terribly embarrassed by his shamelessness and lowered his head, not daring to look straight at He Zhiyuan at all.

“Song Ran?”

Wanting to hold his hand, He Zhiyuan took a step closer to Song Ran, but the latter swiftly took a step back.

He took another step forward, and Song Ran took another step back.

Behind him was the small bus stop. He had retreated a mere three steps before his back was tragically pressed against the ice-cold glass wall—he had nowhere to go.

He was done for.

Song Ran cast his gaze downward and watched that pair of obviously-expensive leather shoes approach him; at the same time, two ramrod-straight legs that were obviously longer than his entered his line of sight as well. With one hand stuck in a pocket, He Zhiyuan gently tapped Song Ran’s sneakers with the shiny tips of his own shoes and blew a gentle, warm breath against the other’s forehead. “What are you hiding for?”

“I-I’m not hiding.”

He Zhiyuan laughed. “If you’re not hiding, then show me your forehead?”

Song Ran thought for five seconds. Refusing to admit defeat, he had no choice but to brace himself and lift his head.

Strictly speaking, when he flew across the street just now, the progression from running to throwing himself to hugging flowed like water, so he hadn’t had time to carefully look at Mr He’s face at all; only this current moment counted as their first time looking at each other from up close.

Shit, it was the real thing.

He could breathe, could blink, and could waggle his eyebrows—how handsome.

Previously, Song Ran was shocked into a state of confusion even from a distance of more than ten metres. Now that they were separated by a distance of not much more than ten centimetres, all the minute details were apparent. He dumbly looked at He Zhiyuan’s facial features, heart leaping wildly in his chest, and threw his sense of propriety, decorum, and shame into a coal-fired stove; where that shameful ‘Dad’ was thrown was even more of a mystery.

The way he looked after his IQ dropped to zero in a single second was particularly amusing, so it made He Zhiyuan smile.

Hooked on his smile, Song Ran foolishly said, “Can you smile one more time?”

So He Zhiyuan cooperatively smiled one more time.

This time, Song Ran himself didn’t even know what he was doing—he reached out and fisted He Zhiyuan’s necktie, yanked it down, then tilted his head up and kissed the man.

A gentle brush of lips.

Dry, soft, cool, and indescribably comfortable.

After that short second of losing control, it was probably the strange feeling of the kiss that instantly cleared Song Ran’s head. In a fright, he desperately tried to retract his neck, but before their lips completely separated, they were suddenly pressed together even more—He Zhiyuan’s gaze was downcast as he grabbed Song Ran’s hand that was gripping the tie and firmly held it against the wall. Chasing the other’s lips, he leaned down for a kiss.

With that hasty action, the back of Song Ran’s head hit the glass, making a dull thump .

Song Ran’s voluntary action earlier could only be counted as a dragonfly skimming the water’s surface; He Zhiyuan was obviously not satisfied. With an irresistible approach, he pressed Song Ran against the wall and broke through the lips’ gentle line of defence; the tip of his tongue aggressively brushed past the other’s gums to forcibly enter the interior, and then he captured the slick tongue and sucked hard. This plundering approach was too fierce—Song Ran opened his startled eyes wide, but before he could react, his lips had already been so ravaged that their shape changed.

“Mmph!”

Feeling a bit of pain, he struggled to turn his head to the left, but He Zhiyuan followed him to the left. When he turned to the right, He Zhiyuan doggedly followed him to the right. In the end, He Zhiyuan simply seized his jaw, not allowing him to turn his head.

Right as Song Ran was about to run out of breath, He Zhiyuan stopped. “Close your eyes.”

Song Ran seized the opportunity to take two deep breaths and nervously stared at him.

“Close your eyes.”

He repeated the words once more.

Song Ran’s eyelashes trembled and dropped bit by bit as he slowly closed his eyes.

With eyes closed, people would relax; only then could the kiss be drawn out.

He Zhiyuan began to peck at his lips, taking section by section into his mouth and sucking as if he were sampling a plump and elastic fruit candy. Then he licked the surface of Song Ran’s lips with the tip of his tongue and stickily entangled with the other. It was only when the saliva started to accumulate, causing their kisses to make wet noises, that He Zhiyuan parted the relaxed seam of the other’s lips, entered and delved deep, then curled around the other’s burning-hot and pliable tongue; amidst the engagement, he set free his instinctive roughness that had previously been suppressed.

It was initially one-sided teaching and seduction, but Song Ran soon began to clumsily yet diligently respond to him.

The smallest spark could start a conflagration.

As if they were fighting, they kissed to the point where they couldn’t catch their breaths. When it got particularly intense, teeth clacked against teeth and nose bumped against nose; neither person could take the leading role, so they could only hurriedly chase after each other.

The occasional breeze would blow past, dislodging two or three wisteria flowers and making them drift onto their cheeks, which caused a slight itchiness.

But compared to the itchiness that permeated their entire bodies, that was not worth mentioning at all.

Once their long exchange had finally come to a stop, both of them were hard.

Their lower halves were tightly pressed together the entire time they were kissing, so there already wasn’t much room to begin with, and they also needed to accommodate two gradually-stirring things. As a result, the more they kissed, the more painful it was. These two unyielding things were uncontrollable; chafing, exchanging blows, and competing for territory, they itched to spring out of their pants and go at it for real.

Although they wanted to do it, unfortunately between the right time, the right place, and the right people, they only met one of the criteria—and in any case, committing acts of indecency on the streets was definitely against the law. The two of them had no choice but to hide beneath the cascades of wisteria flowers, gasping for breath while they looked at each other with tender affection and quietly waited for the lively members in their pants to calm down.

Song Ran’s lips were kiss-swollen. He forcefully scrubbed at the corners of his lips with the back of his hand and complained, “We still need to pick up Bubu later, isn’t it disgraceful to become like this?”

He Zhiyuan smiled. “Who rushed up and provoked the other first, do you not remember?”

“Who… who’d remember that?”

Song Ran replied, embarrassed, and guiltily looked away.

He Zhiyuan touched his waist and gave him a pinch. “How about we do it one more time to help you recover your memory?”

“Don’t, I still haven’t gone soft yet!” Song Ran hopped up and dodged with a twist of his waist, then yanked away his wandering hand. “Talk about something else! Talk about something else, the sort of thing that’s positive, healthy, and not stimulating, so it’ll go soft quicker.”

“All right.” He Zhiyuan affectionately looked at him and laughed, then changed the topic. “When I got off the bus earlier, where did you count to?”

Song Ran thought for a while. “Thirty-six.”

He Zhiyuan said, “Not bad, it’s quite a good number.”

Song Ran was thinking about asking ‘how bored are you, for you to use even this to forcibly sustain the conversation?’ when he watched He Zhiyuan reach out with his slightly-bent right index finger and gently swipe it across the tip of his nose. “Darling, in the future, if you can’t resist the urge and still want to count, do you know where you should stop?”

Slightly stunned, Song Ran made a surprised sound. “Th… thirty-six.”

“That’s right, thirty-six.” He Zhiyuan nodded and looked deeply into his eyes. “Because when you count to thirty-six, Dad will come pick you up.”

Song Ran gave He Zhiyuan a stupefied look, not blinking at all.

In an instant, it seemed like the clouds had parted to reveal the sun. On that long road with no end in sight, someone had stuck a signpost with ‘the end’ written on it—he had received a precise upper bound. It was a dam that would be indestructible when the floodwaters came, blocking the towering turbulent waves and protecting him from being engulfed by the rushing currents.

This number that he himself had recited could save him.

Song Ran bit his lip, almost unable to refrain from crying again—all of it was on purpose. Mr He’s willingness to show himself only after forcing Song Ran to start counting from one was to give him a valuable number.

Holding back his tears with all the strength in his body, he swiped at the rims of his eyes with the back of a hand and fiercely dug his elbow into He Zhiyuan’s chest as he scolded, “What do you mean ‘Dad’ will come pick me up? You’re harassing me again!”

“Okay, okay, okay, I was wrong, I won’t harass you.” He Zhiyuan laughed lowly, then leaned close to his ear and whispered, “No matter what you call me—dad is fine, hubby is also fine—you’ll always be my darling.”